Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Compare and contrasting

Water boatman & Smelt

The water boatman is a tiny invertebrate that lives in a freshwater habitat. A water boatmen has stripes that run along its oval shaped body. The water boatman had 6 legs and it has 3 body parts which are the head, thorax and abdomen. The water boatmen uses bubbles to breath under water. The water boatmans threats are loss of habitat due to pollution.

In contrast the smelt, another freshwater species, is the smallest fish in the world and it has scales along its thin body. The smelt also has four shiny little fins. Unlike the water boatman's breathing technique the smelt needs gills to breathe in water .

The smelts threats are similar to the water boatman because it is also threatened by loss of habitat due to pollution. But the smelt have another different threat, which is people fishing for them, even though smelt are hard to catch.

It is unusual that the smelt is also threatened by the water boatman because they can eat the whitebait, which is a baby smelt, but when the smelt is an adult they are predators of waterboatman.